A very different, and rather more informed view is provided by Gerard Baker, the Times’ U.S. editor. He acknowledges the impressive scale of Obama’s victory but adds “there was plenty in Tuesday’s results to give pause to anyone tempted to think that the country is about to reinvent itself as a European-style social democracy.” Baker points out that Obama “won a lopsided victory in the electoral college, thanks to quite narrow victories in a number of states,” and adds that it was surprising the Democrats didn’t do better overall, given how much they had going for them. And he pours water on Kaletsky’s notion of a profound cultural shift by noting the success of bans on gay marriage in California and Florida, and other state ballots on social issues. Among the American commentators invited to hold forth by the British press is Alice Walker — author of The Color Purple and one of the elder stateswomen of the left’s “moonbat” wing. Also in the Times, Walker expresses her concern over Obama’s repeated pledges to “kill’” Osama bin Laden. And she plans to have a word with him about it. I’m not kidding. Her article begins:

I have sent out a request that Barack Obama, or Michelle Obama, get in touch with me. While waiting for a response (and imagining how busy they must be), I decided to write down my thoughts.

Walker also cropped up on the BBC’s post-election show. When anchorman Jeremy Paxman attempted to speak to her via video link the sound wasn’t working, and Walker wasn’t aware she was on camera. She appeared to be in a trance: her eyes were shut, and she was rolling her head from side to side, and back and forth, in an alarming manner. She was clearly deeply immersed in the fantasy world she inhabits, but snapped out of it to give her reaction to Obama’s win:

I thought that the planet had won a great victory. I also thought that it gives us all an opportunity for the hardest work we will ever see that’s coming ahead. We have to all work together to change the planet along with someone who we can trust to help us.

First Oprah, now Walker. And they complained about the influence of evangelicals on George Bush. The highly excitable Paxman had set the tone for the BBC’s coverage by claiming that Obama’s challenges included “a planet burning itself up.” And later he speculated as to whether Obama could be a “heir” to JFK — although I’m guessing he didn’t have a new invasion of Cuba in mind — and, speaking over footage of Kennedy’s funeral, wondered whether “Obama’s Camelot” would have “its own dark legacy.” But Paxman also has a mischievous streak, and he made Jesse Jackson squirm by reminding him both of his “cut his nuts off” remark about Obama, and of the fact that Obama had essentially succeeded where he had failed. Paxman also suggested to Congressman James Clyburn that Obama wasn’t strictly an African-American because he wasn’t descended from slaves — not what you’d call entering into the spirit of the occasion.

The other inevitable talking point doing the rounds in the British media is whether this country could one day elect a black prime minister. The consensus seems to be that it will be a while yet, given the fact that blacks make up only three percent of the UK population, as opposed to 13 percent in the U.S., and the relative lack of social mobility in Britain. The Guardian‘s Sunder Katwala provides a sensible assessment, concluding that the obstacles that prevent more ethnic minority candidates being elected to Parliament are far from insurmountable, and are as much about class and gender as about race.

In general the left-wing Guardian was, not surprisingly, ecstatic about Obama’s victory — but there are already signs that even Obama may not be quite left-wing enough. In a column which, in true Guardian style, begins with an exaggerated account of civilian deaths in a U.S. air raid in Afghanistan, Jonathan Steele demands that Obama should declare the “war on terror” over, and start pulling troops out of Afghanistan. If Obama’s makes good on his commitment to step up the U.S. effort in that country — and, if necessary, extend operations into Pakistan — Steele is one of many leftists who are going to be disappointed. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are also the subject of a piece in the conservative Telegraph by Con Coughlin, who is one of the few British commentators to spare a thought for the man Obama will soon replace:

Mr Bush would be the first to admit he did not make these decisions to improve his approval ratings; he made them because he believed they were the right thing to do. And if nothing else, he will leave office knowing that he has achieved his primary goal — making sure America did not suffer another disastrous terrorist attack like 9/11.

Coughlin writes that Afghanistan is likely to become the defining foreign policy issue of Obama’s presidency, as Iraq was for Bush’s two terms, and warns that Obama will be looking for more support — and specifically more troops — from the European allies who have greeted his election with such enthusiasm:

Europe’s political establishment may be rubbing its hands in eager anticipation of Mr Obama becoming America’s 44th president, but the gloss will soon wear thin if they do not give him the practical support he wants.

Also at the Telegraph, Jeff Randall has an interesting analysis of how Obama prevailed in Florida. He notes that the Cuban-American vote shifted toward Obama, as hostility towards Democrats that has lingered since the Bay of Pigs fades among a younger generation that regards itself as more American than Cuban. But Randall says the biggest factor working for Obama was that fears over the economy united the state’s myriad racial and age groups:

Dewy-eyed liberals like to think the election was all about a burning desire for a fairer America (whatever that means), a more racially tolerant America, a more diplomatically sensitive America. … But, from where I was sitting in downtown Miami, a hotbed of hustling, bustling American enterprise, the picture was very clear. Most people wanted to pay lower taxes and that’s what Mr Obama was promising.

Back at the Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash, while getting caught up in the excitement of Obama’s victory rally, acknowledges what few of his colleagues are prepared to admit: that the world’s media, and the world in general, will inevitably apply a double standard when comparing the Obama and Bush presidencies:

No right-wing Republican could insist more than Obama does on American uniqueness, and exceptionalism, manifest destiny. His proclaimed purpose is “to make this century the next American century.”

If George W. Bush said that, we from the rest of the world might regard it as rank nationalist arrogance. Because it’s Obama, we somehow accept it.

Mike McNally is a journalist based in Bath, England. He posts at PJ Tatler and at his own blog Monkey Tennis, and tweets at @notoserfdom. When he's not writing about politics he writes about Photoshop.

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1.
Jonesy55

“leads Europe and much of the world in knee-jerk anti-Americanism — which, more often than not, is actually anti-Republicanism”

Well, at this you recognise that it is a certain strand of US politics that is generally disliked by so many here, not the US in general.

It would be a mistake to tell our American friends that the UK press has been universially supportive of Obama, there are numerous commentators who have severely criticised him.

It’s true that he will face sever challenges though, as would any president inheriting the current economic mess, the years of living beyond the country’s means and selling the economic soul of the US to China in return for a few cheap widescreen TVs and plastic toys are coming home to roost.

“Well, at this you recognise that it is a certain strand of Us politics that is generally disliked by the people on the left and centre left and many in the centre here and many of these people dislike the US in general.”

The previous statement was rather inaccurate.

Certainly in the circle that I move in there was universal dismay that the USA was now under the control of a man who may be a Marxist and of course the accepted fawning of him by our oh so biased media, lead as always by that most craven outfit known as the BBC.

Well, the left, centre left, centre (and I would add some elements of the British centre-right) do make up enough of the British public to constitute ‘in general’ in my opinion. The hard-right that might be in tune with most GOP sentiments is certainly a minority.

It’s true though that as Mr McNally points out, what is often caricatured as anti-americanism by the US right and its allies is more often than not just opposition to a certain political philosophy and tradition, something that is shared by many people within the US itself, as the recent election shows.

It can only be ‘anti-american’ to disagree with the opinions and choices of this part of the american population if you accept the premise that these people and their opinions are the only legitimate expression of what it is to be american, thereby dismissing the opinions of the other half of the population as irrelevant.

There’s no point complaining about media bias, if you want some media that’s biased in your direction there is plenty to choose from, the fact that you’ve found this site is testament to that. The ‘liberal’ media just seems more popular.

To suggest that it is only a “certain strand of US politics that is generally disliked by so many (ingrate Limeys and by every other kind of ingrate Europeon Neo-Soviet dwelling dole-bludger!”) is to ascribe reason to the morbidly hesperophobic hatred of all things American that pretty much defines every one of the Euro-wieners’ Neo-Soviet’s squalidly fasciSSocialist on-and-offshore subjects. And his every Canadian cohort.

The kind of hatred and rage that descends from the morbid envy knows not reason and in the case of the Limeys, it’s visceral!

And even if the Limes never figure President George Walker Bush for the Limey-styled liberal (Euro-socialist) he’s proven to be, about twenty minutes after the mobbed-up Marxist murtadd Muslim’s “administration” begins operations and is issuing instructions to Eurabia, to its once-Anglo-Saxon off-shore satellite state and to the rest of the thurd wurld and is ordering it all about, their psychopathological projection of their envy-driven hatred of and raging at America will have degenerated into its generic strain. And B Hussayn bin Hussayn bin Hussayn Muhummad Ubama will be its target.

“She appeared to be in a trance: her eyes were shut, and she was rolling her head from side to side, and back and forth, in an alarming manner. She was clearly deeply immersed in the fantasy world she inhabits…”

The US election was/is of huge significance and hence I was content to be provided with extensive coverage.

What I was not prepared for was our entire media establishment becoming obsessed, and not in a good way. (As an international brand, most will be familiar with the perfume, OBsession, whose strapline, here at least, is ‘between love and madness’. Apt).

When a Scottish teenager can trot out Dizzee Rascal’s thoughts on the US election contenders but struggle to answer what local election might be taking place I decided the plot was well lost, especially by our in theory objective, professional national broadcaster. I actually wrote to the Newsnight blog on the day of the Glenrothes by-election, which fell the day after the US result was known, to ask if we might address politics closer to home… and it was moderated out. Seems there is a ‘rule’ that ‘we’ can’t discuss elections here on voting day.

A choice bit of Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy-esque dissembling, inasmuch as they hadn’t mentioned it… due to the US coverage… before either. Oddly, when the Government/Prime Minister actually ‘won’ to everyone’s surprise, it became wall to wall here.

There is another interesting piece on this blog about the professionalism and competencies of the media estate these days. Not great, IMHO. Especially when lacking any hint of one major aspect that I still value in my reporting, but see little of these days.

As we’re going OverBoard with the prefixes, let me try this one out too: OBjectivity.

The weirdest thing is that whatever Obama wants to do was done in Britain long ago, and look at the results. Isn’t it obviously bad? A once proud country of ladies and gentlemen is transformed to something… something really bad, a vulgar, crumbling place, something I cannot imagine how intelligent people can like. It’s so weird.

Progressive utopianism is perhaps OK as long as one really does not know the results and hopes for the best one. But when one DOES know? What is the excuse then? Does Britain really look better than in, say, 1925?

the brits are just pissed that President Bush had Tony Blair in his back pocket and tied up in our war on terror and therefore are glad to see us adopting a brand of socialism that tanked europe decades ago

“The weirdest thing is that whatever Obama wants to do was done in Britain long ago, and look at the results. Isn’t it obviously bad? A once proud country of ladies and gentlemen is transformed to something… something really bad, a vulgar, crumbling place, something I cannot imagine how intelligent people can like. It’s so weird.”

A vulgar, crumbling place? Sometimes vulgar, occasionally crumbling for sure but I’m not sure what golden age you are harking back to, you are squinting into the past with rose-tinted spectacles I fear. The country of gentleman squires and tea drinking ladies existed only in novels and for a small upper middle class and aristocracy, the reality was far harsher i’m afraid. Atrocious working conditions, hunger, poverty, disease, poor housing, very little social mobility,

“Progressive utopianism is perhaps OK as long as one really does not know the results and hopes for the best one. But when one DOES know? What is the excuse then? Does Britain really look better than in, say, 1925?”

In the opinion of any sane person I would say yes, unless maybe you are an aristocrat who laments the fact that he doesn’t have the chance his grandfather had to go and stick it to the natives for a few years in India.

For 98% of people in this country though I would say that there are far more opportunities for a much better life than in 1925. You only have to look at the huge numbers of emigrants to North America in the first three decades of the 20th century at a time when passage across the atlantic cost a small fortune to see that for most people, life was pretty crap in those days.

“When a Scottish teenager can trot out Dizzee Rascal’s thoughts on the US election contenders”

That was the most surreal thing I’ve seen on TV. You could just see some 60 year old white TV executive sitting at a conference table telling his team that they needed to interview someone who was black and ‘down with the kids’. And then they get “Mr Rascal” who spends the entire interview saying that hiphop won the election…

So far Sidi Obama’s hype machine has managed to seduce much of the British media but beneath the hysteria there is a lot of mistrust even on the left. Not long ago when a Blairite meritocrat was praising Obama’s “Charismatic Oratory” veteran leftie Prof. Germaine Greer (not one to get sucked in by hysteria) said “Charismatic – bollocks! He’s a motvational speaker, his vacuous speeches are so reheared, so obviously designed to whip up hysteria in the audience they are odious and repulsive.”

She is not the only one who feels that way. So far we are not being heard.

Ian, You are being heard, just not neccesarily agreed with. I have read plenty of ‘dissenting voices’ in the British media professing scepticism towards Obama , Germaine greer being just one of them.

This is why I say it’s a sham to pretend, as the article writer does, that there is universal adoration. This seems designed merely to reinforce the cliche of ‘anti-american europeans’ in the mind of readers on the US right who in the absence of much exposure to a wide range of european media will no doubt lap it up as proof of the opinions they already hold.

I couldn’t agree more with the comment in post #15. I can’t help wondering if Mike McNally has deliberately ignored the high-profile media commentators who contributed to what I estimate to be around 45% of the Obama coverage. This isn’t a rough estimate. I currently work in London UK for an international news agency as a researcher for international journalists for several major media organisations, most of which are based in North America. As a result of my job, I’m very familiar with journalists who write specifically to suit the overall philosophy of the publication editors who commission them. This is, I fear, something that Mr McNally might be guilty of when writing a piece for what is, after all, a right wing bulletin. I suggest that he’s attempting to whip up a distinctly Anti-Brit storm!

Mr McNally: this comment is in no way a sleight on your piece, which is interesting and well-written. But might I suggest that you listen to the Today show on BBC Radio 4? Their commentators are blatantly, positively Anti-O (albeit in that very clever, clever, almost sarcastic BBC way) which led to the BBC receiving 87 complaints about ‘bias’ the day after the American elections. It’s a great shame you failed to mention this in your piece.

Addition/correction to my recent comment: “the high-profile media commentators who contributed to what I estimate to be around 45% of the Obama coverage” – I meant to write “the high-profile media commentators who contributed to what I estimate to be around 45% of the Obama coverage in the UK media”.

Yes there are a number of so called Conservatives that simper after Obama, but they are Centre/Centre-left. As for defining anyone who is respectful of the ROP as extreme right shows your own extremism.

Obama will do the same thing that Blair did in the UK and what Sarkozy the Socialist is now doing in France, surely you must remember that William Hague speach that mentioned Blair on manoevres in France with a so called Centre Right party in France, the UMP, now we watch as Sarkozy does the same sort of thing as Blair.

Britain is a real mess, the Labour party have taken it back to the 70′s and Obama will take the USA back to the Carter administration or worse. And I would suggest that Britain looked a lot better in 1996 then it does now, a balanced budget and a careful steady development with a dynamic economy that was steered through a tough recession in the 90 – 92 period.

The main stream media lead by the BBC were fawning over Obama, it was embarrasing…, and the odd snidy remark does nothing. I can tell you it was just as sickening in France, change, pah!!!

But anyway, as a Brit who has a lot of respect for Uncle Sam, leave us to fester in our own mess, many of us Europeans deserve whats coming to them, I just wish the Euro elites get a taste of it before I get mine. A number of my American friends said that they had had it with Europe, I told them I regretted to hear them say that, but I understood why…

What is “American” and what that “certain political philosophy” you so coily point at are the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That’s what defines America for me, an immigrant from Eastern Europe.
If most Americans are beginning to reject those foundational ideas, sure, it’s their democratic right, inscribed in the Constitution. They are doing it at their own peril, which people(s) often do, if you know what I mean.

As a Brit, in a conversation with an American in Utah some years ago, I was asked: “Please do not judge us by our television”. So I will say to US readers, please do not judge us by the BBC and the Guardian. These are metropolitan organs reflecting the groupthink of the chattering classes, which would not last long if their subsidies were removed. I must say I have been disappointed by the fact that Omamania has now spread even to some columnists on the Daily Telegraph.

1) envy is rampant
2) how would you feel if a certain number of your own citizens decided to find a better life somewhere else?
3) Referred to UK: how would you feel if one of your territories told you “FU: we want indipendence”?

A list of who people Republicans appear to hate according to to the posts I’ve read recently on pyjamas:

• The President Elect of the USA
• Liberals
• John McCain
• Muslims
• The Media
• The Electorate
• Independents
• Moderates
• The British
• The French
• Colin Powell
• Gay People
• College Students
• Anyone who appears to be in any way different than they are.

Could this possibly be why the Republican party has just lost the election?

It is true the British press is almost unanimously supportive of Barack Obama (by all but the fringes of the fringes). This universal support cuts completely across the left/right divide. At times this amounts to a type of fawning bandwagon jumping that is, personally speaking, starting to get on my nerves. It is important though to understand the completely legitimate reasons for this unprecedented level of support and if the GOP doesn’t come to terms with realty of the situation they are doomed to at least a generation in the wilderness.

1, The symbolism of a country with a history of slavery, bigotry and racism electing a black President to the White House.

2, The departure of a President who was almost universally despised and mocked in equal measure as an embarrassingly incompetent failure.

If the hierarchy of GOP does not come to except the factual accuracy’s of these observations, as I am sure many of it’s more realistic members already do, it is living in a complete fantasy land. A fantasy land where it is destined to remain for a long, long time.

I’ve felt a bit embarassed for the Europeans making such driveling fools of themselves over Obama. It’s quite the spectacle.

At some point they’ll come to realize that ‘Hope and Change’ doesn’t mean anything like what what they imagined and that Obama is just a bumbling human like the rest of us – and a bumbling human in on the job training at that.

Any right/republican/conservative candidate in almost any country cannot pull a stunt like that. Conservative people care about what’s real and what the need. Leftists care about the “dream” and utopia.

This is why the strategy of let’s cure leprosy, peace in the world and santa claus works with people with no will to work, no intelligence, no morals.

If any republican/conservative candidate started telling about “waves retreating, cure the sick” and all that babbling he’d be branded as deluded stupid. That’s barack obama, but his supporters are not the brightest of the bunch.

Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.

The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.

I really don’t see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts.

It already has all the signs of such a thing. The newspapers which recorded Obama’s victory have become valuable relics. You may buy Obama picture books and Obama calendars and if there isn’t yet a children’s picture version of his story, there soon will be.

Proper books, recording his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his blundering trip to Africa, are little-read and hard to find.

If you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left-wing machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe anything. He plainly doesn’t believe it himself. His cliche-stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was what you would expect from someone who knew he’d promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over.

He needn’t worry too much. From now on, the rough boys and girls of America’s Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton’s stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.

Just look at his sermon by the shores of Lake Michigan. He really did talk about a ‘new dawn’, and a ‘timeless creed’ (which was ‘yes, we can’). He proclaimed that ‘change has come’. He revealed that, despite having edited the Harvard Law Review, he doesn’t know what ‘enormity’ means. He reached depths of oratorical drivel never even plumbed by our own Mr Blair, burbling about putting our hands on the arc of history (or was it the ark of history?) and bending it once more toward the hope of a better day (Don’t try this at home).

I am not making this up. No wonder that awful old hack Jesse Jackson sobbed as he watched. How he must wish he, too, could get away with this sort of stuff.

And it was interesting how the President-elect failed to lift his admiring audience by repeated – but rather hesitant – invocations of the brainless slogan he was forced by his minders to adopt against his will – ‘Yes, we can’. They were supposed to thunder ‘Yes, we can!’ back at him, but they just wouldn’t join in. No wonder. Yes we can what exactly? Go home and keep a close eye on the tax rate, is my advice. He’d have been better off bursting into ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony’ which contains roughly the same message and might have attracted some valuable commercial sponsorship.

Perhaps, being a Chicago crowd, they knew some of the things that 52.5 per cent of America prefers not to know. They know Obama is the obedient servant of one of the most squalid and unshakeable political machines in America. They know that one of his alarmingly close associates, a state-subsidised slum landlord called Tony Rezko, has been convicted on fraud and corruption charges.

They also know the US is just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools, streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV-watching habits and its choice of fast-food joint. The difference is that it is now done by unspoken agreement rather than by law.

If Mr Obama’s election had threatened any of that, his feel-good white supporters would have scuttled off and voted for John McCain, or practically anyone. But it doesn’t. Mr Obama, thanks mainly to the now-departed grandmother he alternately praised as a saint and denounced as a racial bigot, has the huge advantages of an expensive private education. He did not have to grow up in the badlands of useless schools, shattered families and gangs which are the lot of so many young black men of his generation.

If the nonsensical claims made for this election were true, then every positive discrimination programme aimed at helping black people into jobs they otherwise wouldn’t get should be abandoned forthwith. Nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary, there will probably be more of them.

And if those who voted for Obama were all proving their anti-racist nobility, that presumably means that those many millions who didn’t vote for him were proving themselves to be hopeless bigots. This is obviously untrue.

I was in Washington DC the night of the election. America’s beautiful capital has a sad secret. It is perhaps the most racially divided city in the world, with 15th Street – which runs due north from the White House – the unofficial frontier between black and white. But, like so much of America, it also now has a new division, and one which is in many ways much more important. I had attended an election-night party in a smart and liberal white area, but was staying the night less than a mile away on the edge of a suburb where Spanish is spoken as much as English, plus a smattering of tongues from such places as Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan.

As I walked, I crossed another of Washington’s secret frontiers. There had been a few white people blowing car horns and shouting, as the result became clear. But among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy.

They grasped the real significance of this moment. They knew it meant that America had finally switched sides in a global cultural war. Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world.

Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.

These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America’s conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.

They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left-wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far-off deserts. And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?

The MSM in the US & the UK are suffering from Obamaitis and basically shirking their responsability as the press. However when the sane ones wake up from their Obama worship some of them are going to react very badly. When it all goes teets up their embarrassment will drive them to extreme dislike of the man just you watch. (This will probably be related to when the public sees through the man.)

All the people that are cheering for obama couldn’t care less about USA or USA’s problem or its people. They only care about themselves and their supposed enlighted wiew of the world.

There are legions of people obsessed with the idea that others might perceived them as racists which is an anathema to them, since it’s the slander they usually use towards people who they consider inferior.

The utter contempt towards sarah palin and people like her is entirely typical of any leftist party even in europe.

Consider also that usually the “left” wants to have total hegemony over subjects like the rights of people with disabilities. They usually abort them with no regret but if someone makes it out alive they feel they are the only ones with enough “sensitivity” to deal with them and represent them.

Having conservatives taking care of this problem creates in the left a short circuit because they are forced to go against their credo only to destroy the opponent.

Same thing that happened with gays vs. blacks in california.

The left is the party that doesn’t have any inner value, they just take the leftovers of the conservative party and puts their grievances together. Sometimes those different stances clash with each other.

You have also to consider that when reporting, the intellectual prostitutes in europe (journalists) most of the times they simply copy-paste-translate what is being written in USA, without an ounce of critical thinking.

So 80% of USA press in favour of obama translates with the same in EU.

European press is 80% lefty too, so also editorials sounds the same.

It’s a sad state of affairs. The conservative paper that I read in my country at least mentioned the obama-poland fiasco that happened on nov 9th.

Lastly,
“If the hierarchy of GOP does not come to except the factual accuracy’s…”

That’s what the “charisma” of a Dear Leader does to one, and there’s more to come: bad spelling, bad grammar, illusion of being salvaged out of obscure, struggling annonimity, no real education required, for real education belongs to the “rich”, and knowing the difference between “except” and “accept” is out-moded, merely a sign of class privilege.

Reading this article jogged my memory of another comment Sen. Obama made which made me uneasy.

He’d spoken of doubling our efforts in aid to African countries.

I worked in Bamako, Mali this past year for an atmospheric study project during the country’s monsoon season. I worked closely with Government’s from other countries before but I was excited to work in Africa. I’d been to Morocco in ’95 as a 19 year old but I didn’t appreciate, experience my time while there altogether.

Africa’s countries have the leaders they’ve elected today after a battle to free themselves of apartheid. The country now has the leaders they’ve elected. Result? There’s more corruption taking place than ever before. i say this for I’d worked with pilots who’ve been in Africa 10, 20 and 30 years ago. Our mechanics were South African and said the most technologically advanced country in the continent is a far cry of what it was years ago.

A common site is to see boys of all ages wearing soccer-type jerseys with Unicef or U.N. decals. Obviously the shirts are donated from the aforementioned, as well as cooking, farming and a wide array of other supplies, knowledge.

This last caveat, many people may look at as only a noble or humane action. Of course in so many ways it is. For me it’d becme a 2-sided coin. It ever-so increases the dependence of outside aid, pity upon the countries which give, to give more. Sure, Africa is “free”. Though I haven’t seen what they’re free to do for sympathy, pity is expected. The plethora of beggars, often times 2 year old children walking up to you barefoot with their mother a few meters away teaching their children how to beg. At 2…

I wish Sen. Obama would have spoken of sending more education, city planners, etc., type Representatives to Africa instead of bigger handouts. I strongly believe in a hand-up but not a constant handout.

While there (May – Nov) neighboring Mauritania experienced a coup. Burkina Faso is/was experiencing the highest unemployment rate per capita in the world (though I’m sure Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is inching towards the title) and Eastern Niger was experiencing tribal wars. These are all countries which neighbor Mali.

Most of the hotels (incl. 5 star Sofitel) and buildings built or been built were financed by their neighbor and friend, Libya’s Omar Khadafi.

Your grasp of early American history explains a lot about you. It’s an interesting mix of naivete and thick-headedness that one rarely observes. Have you considered running for Vice President? You have the qualifications.

1) envy is rampant
2) how would you feel if a certain number of your own citizens decided to find a better life somewhere else?
3) Referred to UK: how would you feel if one of your territories told you “FU: we want indipendence”?

So, take that into consideration everytime you have the misfortune to come across a bitchy british idiot.”

Does your self-loathing know no bounds?

It’s easy to dismiss any opposition to anything American as just pure jealousy, this is the Bush way, “they are jealous of our freedoms” but it doesn’t actually explain anything. Do you really think that the Taliban are “jealous” of the US and secretly want to a society just like liberal San Francisco? No, they are not jealous, they oppose it and don’t want it.

It can be similar but obviously on a milder scale for Europeans. The reason that most Europeans dislike American gun laws for example is not that they are jealous and secretly want a large arsenal in their basement. It’s that they look at the 12,000 murders in the US last year and decide that they want to follow a different path, whether you agree or disagree with this, it isn’t jealousy.

It’s the same for healthcare, most Europeans like their universal healthcare systems, they do not criticise the US model because they are jealous and secretly want that model themselves. Those who do like the US model are usually quite vocal about it and do not pretend that they don’t while criticising the US anyway out of jealousy.

As for not liking a place because some of our citizens go to live there, that is just silly. As many Brits go to live in tiny New Zealand as in the USA and far more go to live in France, Australia and Spain. There is no reason at all why this would cause bitterness or resentment towards any of these countries. There are also 300,000 Americans living in the UK, I would hope that this doesn’t cause resentment among our American friends and happily I see no evidence that it does.

And again, the American war of independence was a long time ago, since then the UK has lost many many other colonies, we really would be bitter if we harboured resentment towards all of those people living there. Maybe there are a few cranky freaks who are bitter about this but it is not a widespread cultural phenomenon.

Why not just accept that it is perfectly normal and natural to like some things and dislike other things about a particular country. Why does the knee-jerk “anti-americanism” accusation have to be levelled at anybody who dares to disagree with anything in US society or politics? If liking Obama is Anti-american then most Americans are also anti-american, an accusation that makes no sense at all, as America is what the American people decide it is.

I used the term ‘hard-right’ actually, and on the spectrum of British/European political opinion that’s where the GOP would sit on many issues, although on the US spectrum those positions might be just centre-right. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just a fact.

jonesy, why self loather. I do not come from your shitty island. All the times I had the misfortune to travel to the UK, it seemed to me like Saudi Arabia. Dirty, ugly and racist, and yes, racist ALSO towards other “whites” like eastern europeans south europeans.

So, I am proud that my country is a faithful ally of USA and never forgets to praise the USA troops that freed us from a dictatorship and the Marshall Plan who helped us rebuild our country.

It’s not jealousy of freedom, guns or health care, it’s jealousy of SUCCESS.

It’s obvious to anybody except the idiots like yourself, that talibans or muslims in general are not jealous of our porn magazines or of our chance to express our opinions, they are simply jealous of the WEALTH usa can create. If you had more than a quarter of a brain you would know that hystorically muslims never created any wealth. After each conquest by arabs/moors they were simply pillaging and parasiting on existing and wealthy civilizations.

The DHIMMI contract with inferior infidels provided them the necessary money and goods to rule without having any particular knowledge or ability.

When you are used to parasite on others, you do not expect to work to create your own wealth, you simpy steal from others or create special contracts (nowadays it’s for oil) to force others to provide you with what you need.

Same goes for other EU or non-eu countries.

It’s the money stupid, not the laws to have guns. I can have a gun in my country the same way americans have theirs, so I don’t know what you are talking about.

According to your very stupid statement Europe dislikes usa property of guns. Well, Finland has the third highest amount of gun ownership in the world, after the US and Yemen – according to the 2007 national firearms register, so stop talking as you represent “something” in europe, because you lack some basic information.

Secondly, “we” allegedly dislike gun possession because “our” moral superiority cannot accept the widespread violence that happens in USA (I underline that eventual violence happens in USA, another soil). So according to this faulty logic, europe should be despised worldwide because “we” gave to the world in less than 100 years 2 world wars, we gave Hitler and Milosevich in less than 50 years, we contributed to slavery, we massacred Incas and Maya populations and the list is a mile long.

If gun ownership is a problem, it is to be decided by americans. Americans think that having a gun is right (65% according to recent statistics). Doesn’t seem patronising looking at what other countries choose to do with their own internal laws? Do you still think USA is your colony?

Maybe the UK should look at his own violence record (murders made with knives) before talking.

About medical care. Don’t know about you but when I turn on the TV and see that person X is making a plea to viewers to collect money to go abroad to have a serious life-saving operation that can save his life, the destination is NEVER in europe. Destination is ALWAYS USA.

Maybe the american system can guarantee a certain amount of RESEARCH that the socialized medicine cannot?

But again, it’s THEIR problem. It is very patronising of you to lecture an independent country about what to do and how to do it.

“And again, the American war of independence was a long time ago, since then the UK has lost many many other colonies, we really would be bitter if we harboured resentment towards all of those people living there. ”

You are. You never got over the fact that the british empire collapsed.

You are a drug addict that doesn’t admit to have a problem.

And yes, Obummer, beside saying ANYTHING to get elected stated in many sermons that USA is at fault in pretty much everything.

His wife went on the same route.

He belongs to the thinking that if usa “buys” other people’s appreciation then everything will be all right. So let’s sit down without preconditions with dictators worldwide, let’s take responsibility for any military action on behalf of Europe because they don’t want to have anything to do with it (see Serbia bombings) and the cowards will like us.

This is an unacceptable behaviour. Any “normal” country would not accept this behaviour from the president or prime minister. But you find nothing wrong with the PUSA to be like that.

There isn’t much logic in what you are saying. Reality brutally clashes with facts.

Here is a piece written by Robert Kilroy-Silk in 2004. After he wrote that he was SACKED by BBC (al Bee Bee Ceera).

I encourage all american people to read this and realize that something like this means no more job for you in UK.
We Owe Arabs Nothing

WE ARE told by some of the more hysterical critics of the war on terror that “it is destroying the Arab world”. So? Should we be worried about that? Shouldn’t the destruction of the despotic, barbarous and corrupt Arab states and their replacement by democratic governments be a war aim?

After all, the Arab countries are not exactly shining examples of civilisation, are they? Few of them make much contribution to the welfare of the rest of the world.

Indeed, apart from oil – which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the West – what do they contribute?

No, nor can I. Indeed, the Arab countries put together export less than Finland.

We’re told that the Arabs loathe us. Really? For liberating the Iraqis?

For subsidising the lifestyles of people in Egypt and Jordan, to name but two, for giving them vast amounts of aid? For providing them with science, medicine, technology and all the other benefits of the West? They should go down on their knees and thank God for the munificence of the United States.

What do they think we feel about them? That we adore them for the w ay they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on September 11 and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders?

That we admire them for the cold-blooded killings in Mombasa, Yemen and elsewhere? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb-amputators, womenrepressors? I don’t think the Arab states should start a debate about w hat is really loathsome.

But why, in any case, should we be concerned that they feel angry and loathe us? The Arab world has not exactly earned our respect, has it?

Iran is a vile, terrorist-supporting regime – part of the axis of evil. So is the Saddam Hussein-supporting Syria. So is Libya. Indeed, most of them chant support for Saddam.

That is to say they support an evil dictator who has gassed hundreds of thousands of their fellow Arabs and tortured and murdered thousands more. How can they do this and expect our respect?

Why do they imagine that only they can feel anger, call people loathsome? It is the equivalent of all the European nations coming out in support of Hitler the moment he was attacked by the US, because he was European, despite the fact that he was attempting to exterminate the Jews – and Arabs.

Moreover, the people who claim we are loathsome are currently threatening our civilian populations with chemical and biological weapons. They are promising to let suicide bombers loose in Western and American cities. They are trying to terrorise us, disrupt our lives.

And then they expect us to be careful of their sensibilities?
We have thousands of asylum seekers from Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries living happily in this country on social security.

This shows what their own people think of the Arab regimes, doesn’t it? There is not one single British asylum seeker in any Arab country.

That says it all about which country deserves the epithet loathsome.

———————————

This guy is right on the money. Nothing he wrote is false or inaccurate. He was fired!

This is the sad state of UK (thank god not the whole europe is like that.

Susan, yes Kiroy-Silk was right on the money…, as I understand why Americans are upset with the sneering superior Brits I can no longer get upset with comments like your about Britain. I have come to the point that I think us Europeans deserve to be under the yoke of Islam, I just hope all those scum bag leaders who betrayed us get their dose of it.

Re comment 45, hard right, rubbish, today a hard left group were arrested in France for trying to derail TGV’s, now hard left is the correct terms for them, but you are having me on I think, its a ridiculous comment and I can only express comtempt for not being able to differentiate between real extremists.

A backwater Europe is, and impotent Europeans are – the Obama situation is another illustration of the obsessional manner the euros project all the fears, hopes and resents upon America.
Who cares in Los Angeles about Germany’s president or about Barcelona’s immigration policies? Who gives a damn on who’s goin to dwell on Downing Street #10?
And Sarkozy? That’s the Greek singer? Juan Carlos – is that the guy on Oympic who changes tires?
Swiss is a cheese, all English people I met in the States are airport/hotel lobby operators or whores (awful in bed, for that matter); Sweedish so far don’t speak Russian, which we don’t know whether is good or bad since every third person on the street in Frankfurt, Milano, Cherbourg, Birmingham and so on, is a Zulu or Pygmy, thing that will sure add to the advancemet of Europe – and a Zulustan will soon be the entire continent.
As far as what they think about America – impotent helots exitedly blabbering around their hovels about the master’s latest stunt.

re comment 50 and 51, but no matter that you have intense dislike for me and my people, I still hold the USA in great respect and only regret that over 50% have the same disease as us Europeans, that is not a sneering comment but real sadness on my part.

“jonesy, why self loather. I do not come from your shitty island. All the times I had the misfortune to travel to the UK, it seemed to me like Saudi Arabia. Dirty, ugly and racist, and yes, racist ALSO towards other “whites” like eastern europeans south europeans.”

It’s not just Brits you hate though is it, you also hate the French at least and you say that every European city you have ever visited is a dump.

It won’t upset me in the slightest if you never visit the UK to be honest, and coming from you, I take such an intense dislike as a compliment. Thanks

“So, I am proud that my country is a faithful ally of USA and never forgets to praise the USA troops that freed us from a dictatorship and the Marshall Plan who helped us rebuild our country.”

Good for you. I’m just trying to work out where you’re from, you’ve said before that you border France, and with the above information I can probably narrow it down to either Germany or Italy. I’d guess at Italy, (or maybe Padania?).

“It’s not jealousy of freedom, guns or health care, it’s jealousy of SUCCESS.

It’s obvious to anybody except the idiots like yourself, that talibans or muslims in general are not jealous of our porn magazines or of our chance to express our opinions, they are simply jealous of the WEALTH usa can create.”

It’s not me that said that, it was GWB

“The DHIMMI contract with inferior infidels provided them the necessary money and goods to rule without having any particular knowledge or ability.”

Actually be fair, in the early medieval period, the Muslim world was ahead of Christendom in many areas of science, Baghdad for example was a major centre of learning and muslim scholars helped to keep western classical knowledge alive during the European dark ages. Europe then overtook the Islamic world following the renaissance.

“According to your very stupid statement Europe dislikes usa property of guns. Well, Finland has the third highest amount of gun ownership in the world, after the US and Yemen – according to the 2007 national firearms register, so stop talking as you represent “something” in europe, because you lack some basic information.”

and we see that tragically in Finland, US-style school massacres are happening, two in the past year in country of only 5.2m people. The murder rate is one of the highest in Europe.

I clearly do represent ‘something’ in Europe, just as you represent ‘something’, if I ‘lack some basic information’ Susan, can I assume that you are claiming perfect knowledge?

“Secondly, “we” allegedly dislike gun possession because “our” moral superiority cannot accept the widespread violence that happens in USA (I underline that eventual violence happens in USA, another soil). So according to this faulty logic, europe should be despised worldwide because “we” gave to the world in less than 100 years 2 world wars, we gave Hitler and Milosevich in less than 50 years, we contributed to slavery, we massacred Incas and Maya populations and the list is a mile long.”

Self-loathing again Susan, it’s not an attractive character trait. These things are all hideous crimes it’s true, that’s why most Europeans don’t want to see a repeat.

Your logic is bizarre though, how does a dislike of US gun laws mean that people despise the USA?? It just means we don’t want to be exactly the same, that’s all. Is this a crime in your eyes?

“If gun ownership is a problem, it is to be decided by americans. Americans think that having a gun is right (65% according to recent statistics). Doesn’t seem patronising looking at what other countries choose to do with their own internal laws? Do you still think USA is your colony?”

Ha ha ha!!! So no outsider should ever comment on the domestic laws or politics of another country? Susan, can you not see how you might be considered a hypocrite for saying this, ha ha ha!!!

“Maybe the UK should look at his own violence record (murders made with knives) before talking.”

True, there were about 300 knife murders in the UK last year, too many by far but let’s keep this in perspective, a murder rate of 1.5 per 100,000 is fairly low, even London only has a murder rate of 2.3 per 100,000 which is far lower than any major US city.

“About medical care. Don’t know about you but when I turn on the TV and see that person X is making a plea to viewers to collect money to go abroad to have a serious life-saving operation that can save his life, the destination is NEVER in europe. Destination is ALWAYS USA.”

I can’t recall ever seeing this phenomenon to be honest so I can’t really comment. I’m sure it does happen but the numbers are so tiny that it is not really a major factor in deciding health policy. As far as I know, most people who go to the US for treatment go for cheap cosmetic surgery.

“Maybe the american system can guarantee a certain amount of RESEARCH that the socialized medicine cannot?

But again, it’s THEIR problem. It is very patronising of you to lecture an independent country about what to do and how to do it.”

Maybe, but then maybe big pharma just wants us to believe that the best way to good health is by spending a fortune on drugs and procedures when in fact healthy lifestyles are far more important. I’m actually quite happy that Europeans live longer while spending less on healthcare. In any case we have plenty of medical research, Glaxosmithkline, Astrazeneca etc etc

Everything you say about me being patronising can easily be thrown straight back at you Susan so it’s probably not a good line of argument for you to pursue.

“You are. You never got over the fact that the british empire collapsed.

You are a drug addict that doesn’t admit to have a problem.”

Thank you for telling me how I think Susan, you really are a special person to have this power.

“And yes, Obummer, beside saying ANYTHING to get elected stated in many sermons that USA is at fault in pretty much everything.

His wife went on the same route.

He belongs to the thinking that if usa “buys” other people’s appreciation then everything will be all right. So let’s sit down without preconditions with dictators worldwide, let’s take responsibility for any military action on behalf of Europe because they don’t want to have anything to do with it (see Serbia bombings) and the cowards will like us.

This is an unacceptable behaviour. Any “normal” country would not accept this behaviour from the president or prime minister.”

Do you not think it is patronising to tell the American people that the democratic decision they have made is UNACCEPTABLE Susan?

“Actually be fair, in the early medieval period, the Muslim world was ahead of Christendom in many areas of science, Baghdad for example was a major centre of learning and muslim scholars helped to keep western classical knowledge alive during the European dark ages. Europe then overtook the Islamic world following the renaissance.”

Actually that would not be fair, the Muslim wold conquered civilisations that were far superior to them in terms of science and technology, the renaissance began after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 when there was an influx of people from the Byzantium Empire into Italy. The great library at Alexandria was destroyed by a Muslim who said that all that was needed was the Quran. The people in Baghdad you talk about were persecuted and then all such learning was banned. There was still many areas that still kept the learning of the Ancient world, the most notable being the Irish monks who were the missionaries that converted many in France and Germany. The only thing we can thank Islam for is that they forced people to bring their knowledge with them to Europe fleeing Islamic persecution. They even try to take credit for algebra which was a Hindu if memory serves me right, what you said is rubbish…

I just read on the BBC that a 15 year old boy was shot dead, so who has guns in the UK, criminals and terrorists…, I used to go shooting as a hobby in the UK, I as never given any vote on the matter, just lost any right to carry out a sport that I enjoyed because of the facist reaction to one nutter, which was an excuse.

And if you think that voter fraud, and also ignoring the rules in terms of funding is democratic then you still have not understand that democracy also requires that people play by certain rules.

Susan is right to show contempt for most of Europe, yes and we are despised by many in the world for the two world wars, I have debated Muslims a number of times and found that they use that as something to attack the West with, however they lose everytime when we get into details, I detest the European holier than thou from a bunch of unelected corrupt scum who have total disrespect for the people they are supposedly serving.

“It’s not just Brits you hate though is it, you also hate the French at least and you say that every European city you have ever visited is a dump.”

no you’re wrong, but we already established you are pretty stupid. No racism detected in every easter eu country and no burkas either. The worst are Fwance and UK, I never mentioned anything negative about any other, you idiot.

Nice projection eh.

“It’s not me that said that, it was GWB”

you repeated for 8 years that bush was a retard in charge and now you quote him. That says a lot about your “arguments”.

“Actually be fair, in the early medieval period, the Muslim world was ahead of Christendom in many areas of science, Baghdad for example was a major centre of learning and muslim scholars helped to keep western classical knowledge alive during the European dark ages. Europe then overtook the Islamic world following the renaissance.”

bla bla bla, the dhimmi has spoken

of course truth is another matter. Muslims parasited only and took credit when it wasn’t due. Typical example is that we call modern numbering “arab numbers” while it is a HINDU convention

“and we see that tragically in Finland, US-style school massacres are happening, two in the past year in country of only 5.2m people. The murder rate is one of the highest in Europe. ”

And this affects you how? I am more worried about the random murders in the uk (with knives or bare hands) than in usa with guns legally possessed and where the population agrees to keep firearms for safety.

And scotland has got the second highest murder rate in western Europe and Scots are more than three times more likely to be murdered than people in England and Wales, according to a study by the World Health Organisation.

So much for putting your sorry bunch on a “moral higher ground”.

“Self-loathing again Susan, it’s not an attractive character trait. These things are all hideous crimes it’s true, that’s why most Europeans don’t want to see a repeat.

Your logic is bizarre though, how does a dislike of US gun laws mean that people despise the USA?? It just means we don’t want to be exactly the same, that’s all. Is this a crime in your eyes?”

The self loather is the dhimmi you, I am pretty aware of what we have done, that’s why i didn’t need any evidence that USA is not racist. I do not need any proof, you needed to see zerobama elected because you needed “restoration” of USA in your eyes. I just needed a worthy president. And I didn’t have one.

Projection and self- loathing is merely on YOUR SIDE.

I do not expect USA to be at any standard except their own. UK already has have middle eastern standards. I have no doubts which of the 2 is a “western country”.

“Ha ha ha!!! So no outsider should ever comment on the domestic laws or politics of another country? Susan, can you not see how you might be considered a hypocrite for saying this, ha ha ha!!!”

not at all, only if you lack a brain. I eagerly wait for the ugly brit to fall on their asses. Laws are not a problem, people is.

I do not see americans bothered by the miseries of UK, I see the opposite quite often.

“True, there were about 300 knife murders in the UK last year, too many by far but let’s keep this in perspective, a murder rate of 1.5 per 100,000 is fairly low, even London only has a murder rate of 2.3 per 100,000 which is far lower than any major US city.”

LOL but you said it yourself, you have gun control, so the number should be close to zero. And it’s not.

“I can’t recall ever seeing this phenomenon to be honest so I can’t really comment. I’m sure it does happen but the numbers are so tiny that it is not really a major factor in deciding health policy. As far as I know, most people who go to the US for treatment go for cheap cosmetic surgery.”

maybe in your stupid country. I do not think somebody starts a subscription to have a breast enlargement and people actually send money. That happens only in your celebrity obsessed british subculture.

For the record, I don’t see anybody coming to UK to use your socialized healthcare too.

“Maybe, but then maybe big pharma just wants us to believe that the best way to good health is by spending a fortune on drugs and procedures when in fact healthy lifestyles are far more important. ”

we are all very aware of the “healthy” lifestyle the british live. Drunken to death.

That’s an admirable lifestyle.

“Everything you say about me being patronising can easily be thrown straight back at you Susan so it’s probably not a good line of argument for you to pursue.”

between the two, who is in the wrong place? This is a conservative blog with conservative subject that was rightly anti-obama.

In a perfect world, I would have talked about other stuff with intelligent people that could answer me about things that I want to know about USA, instead I am here, replying to british trolls that are paid to stir up controversy in other forums.

There is no valid reason for you to stay here other than offend others for their choice of president or political stance.

The mistake is yours, I certaintly didn’t come here to educate stupid british about their own miseries. I didn’t even take into consideration to find stupid europeans.

“Do you not think it is patronising to tell the American people that the democratic decision they have made is UNACCEPTABLE Susan?”

the election has been pushed by black racists and media power.

Would you feel the same if the white candidate won and it was pushed heavily by religious right and 80% of media in the tank?

It would seem churlish to deny any contribution made to civilisation by the early Islamic world just because you don’t like modern Islam. It’s true that some achievements commonly credited to the Arab world actually originated in India or China and were merely transmitted to the west through Arabia, but this is by no means the true in all cases.

Of course I am also aware of the contribution of Irish monks to the preservation of classical knowledge, if you read carefully you will see that I said ‘helped’, I did not claim that it was the scholars of Baghdad alone that did this.

“One of the most famous myths about the Great Library is that of it being burnt down on the instructions of the Caliph Omar after Alexandria had been captured by the Arabs. The story was best known in Europe due to the translation of George Bar Hebraeus’s Chronology[104] but was successfully debunked by Edward Gibbon[105]. It is rare to find it being defended today although Parsons is convinced and Canfora willing to seriously consider it[106].

For the purposes of this essay, it has been satisfactorily shown that the Royal Library certainly did not exist by the time that the Arabs arrived and this, coupled with the silence on the subject of the near contemporary Christian chronicler John of Nikiou, should lead to a rejection of the Arab connection. It is perhaps possible that the story resulted from the loss of one of Alexandria’s other libraries during the Arab invasion as by no means all of them can be accounted for”

or alternatively:

“Several historians told varying accounts of a Muslim army led by Amr ibn al ‘Aas sacking the city in 642 after the Byzantine army was defeated at the Battle of Heliopolis, and that the commander asked the caliph Umar what to do with the library. He gave the famous answer: “They will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous.” The Arabs subsequently burned the books to heat bathwater for the soldiers.[19][20] It was also said that the Library’s collection was still substantial enough at this late date to provide six months’ worth of fuel for the baths.[21] However, this account has been dismissed by some as a legend.[22] While the first Western account of the supposed event was in Edward Pococke’s 1663 translation of History of the Dynasties, it was dismissed as a hoax or propaganda as early as 1713 by Fr. Eusèbe Renaudot. Over the centuries, numerous succeeding scholars have agreed with Fr. Renaudot’s conclusion, including Alfred J. Butler, Victor Chauvin, Paul Casanova and Eugenio Griffini.[23] More recently, in 1990, noted Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis argued that the original account is not true, but that it survived over time because it was a useful myth for the great Twelfth century Muslim leader Saladin, who found it necessary to break up the Fatimid caliphate’s collection of heretical Isma’ili texts in Cairo following his restoration of Sunnism to Egypt. Lewis proposes that the story of the caliph Umar’s support of a library’s destruction may have made Saladin’s actions seem more acceptable to his people.[24]”

No doubt some Arabs and Muslims did persecute scientists and destroy centres of learning and great cultural achievements or monuments, they would not be alone in this. As you rightly say, European christendom has also committed some appalling acts over the years.

As for shootings in the UK, yes we have some, but the numbers are small. The total handgun ban was a bit heavy-handed in my opinion and you are clearly still bitter about it but there is a chance that it could be rescinded if people vote for a party that wants to do that.

Of course democracy requires rules but are you really saying that a few dodgy voter registrations were the cause of the election win by Obama? Is it not possible that people just wanted to vote for him??

Maybe you think that Europe deserves to be despised and shown contempt, that is your right, although I find it sad that somebody hates the place he chooses to live in, personally I like Europe and the people here, life is too short to be bitter and miserable about everything.

Churlish, I prefer facts and to give credit where it is due, not because it may be churlish, as the link that Susan posted which is a letter to a certain ex-CEO of HP who was woefully incorrect in her statements. Every single thing that the Muslims have declared as being something they have developed in fact came from another civilisation that they conquered, I have yet to find one that really is theirs, well they did say that the sun set in a muddy pond and we do know how to share out booty.

In terms of disliking modern Islam, I think if you read enough about Islam from the founding of the religion to the modern day you can find multiple reasons to find it a most worrying cult.

I never said that European Christendom had committed some appalling acts over the years, you are saying that. For example the Inquisition over a period of 20 years killed a lot less people than one months worth of Islamic terrorism across the globe, the sack of Jerusalem was only a small number of people not the hundreds of thousands claimed by Muslims, any case of so called Christian crime pales into insignificance in comparison to the vast numbers of dead, or people taken as slaves by Islam over the years. 80,000,000 in India alone.

I have read the debate over the destruction of the library at Alexandria, I am aware that the library had suffered fire damage before in riots between Greeks and Jews, however it was still in existance up and until the Muslim conquest, the riot that caused the most damage saw many people working to save as much as they could, the actual library as a great building did not exist, but many of the books and papers were stored in other less grand buildings.

Without any doubt Muslims did persecute scientists and destroy centres of learning and great cultural achievements or monuments…

Really, well there are a lot more shootings and violent crime then there was in the 70′s and 80′s.

More than a few, and the funding issue is a major issue it shows total contempt for the rules of the democratic process, how can you trust a person who deliberately carries out such acts.

Yes I do feel that way, about 70% of Europeans deserve to come under the yoke of Islam and will do so. Yes I am bitter, bitter at the betrayal of me and my people by our so called leaders who allowed uncontrolled immigration of people with a culture that wants to supplant our culture just so that they can keep in power with people who will vote for more hand outs, the cynicism of the European left is alive and very well in what Obama represents.

“It would seem churlish to deny any contribution made to civilisation by the early Islamic world just because you don’t like modern Islam.”

Islam’s spread hasn’t been peaceful, NEVER. Christianity had some episodes of non-peaceful spreading, that happened constrained in certain years and not as a mandatory mean.

When hordes of ignorant warriors pillage and savage other civilizations, they usually do not bring any worth contribution to civilization. I do not consider new methods of slaughter as contribution to civilization.

The simple fact that you are here, jumping like a clown for the election of zerobama clearly shows that you (and the ones like you) are more into thinking that american evangelicals and republicans are far more dangerous of muslims.

This should be insulting for any western person, the west has been founded on judeo-christian principles and those should be the ones to take into consideration.

Kneejerking to muslims won’t bring any positive outcome.

There are currently several places (usually non-muslim countries) where muslims group and want to seize the land to create little sharia run government.

Everywhere they go, settle and reach a “critical point” (that can be 20% of population or much less) you see the same pattern

a) push for special legislation to restrain free speech (in their language means “criticism of islam)
b) push for special legislation to have bits and pieces of sharia law implemented
c) try to create muslim gettoes to drive local population out of counties/villages/areas through intimidation
d) show contempt for local traditions (religious statues desecrated)
e) fail to address any problem about their own community (honor killing, child marriage, forced marriage, women’s lower status, charity to terrorist organizations, anti-western sermons etc)

I think it is amusing that some Brits on this board like to psychoanalyze America’s election of Obama and try to predict what the significance of his election means, and what it says about the direction of this country.
Since I am an American, living in flyover country and actually work for a living and not an elite- there was a “Perfect Storm” of circumstances that lead to his victory.
Among those circumstances were: a public that was war weary, that the Mainstream Media had been beating us over the head for 8 years telling us that “Bush lied, people died” and “no blood for oil”.
“Bush derangement Syndrome”, where every evil in the world was somehow the work of the Bush Administration or the evil Neocons.
The absolutely shameful media bias that deified Obama (The Messiah) and coddled and protected him, failed to question him and his associations, and implied that any criticism is somehow racist.
The economic meltdown which occured only a month prior to the election, wherein the Democrats and their willing allies in the mainstream media where able to successfully tar the Republicans as fully responsible for the mess and totally ignoring the enormous hand the Democrats had in creating it.
The deluded and irrational thinking that lead millions to turn off their minds and mindlessly follow Obama without question. Because he wasn’t properly vetted, he is a blank slate upon which people can project their own hopes and fears.
What I know is that America isn’t interested in becoming like Europe. People I know don’t even think about or care what European attitudes towards the US are. They are too buzy raising their kids and making a living to concern themselves with that. There is also a deep conservatism in America’s heartland. There is a love of country, a belief in God, and belief in America’s essential goodness that Europeans may mock and scorn, but American’s feel is the source of their strength.
Elections are cyclical. The Left is feeling their oats now, they are excited about remaking America in their own image. They need to understand that once they begin pushing their agenda, we will push back.